This invention relates to a pipe section handling apparatus, and in particular to an apparatus for manipulating sections of a drill string.
Elongated lengths of pipe such as the sections of a drill string are inherently difficult to handle, primarily because of their length and weight. Consequently, systems for handling drill string sections are often complex and expensive to produce. Examples of racking devices or systems for handling drill string sections are described in Canadian Patents Nos. 728,020, issued to Dowty Rotol Limited on Feb. 15, 1966 and 1,151,143, issued to Chevron Research Company on Aug. 2, 1983, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,177,944 issued to Dowty Rotol Limited on Apr. 13, 1965.
The object of the present invention is to overcome the problems mentioned above by providing a relatively simple, compact apparatus for handling pipe sections.